The Early Stages of Banter
by Ivory Novelist
Summary: House and Wilson have been doing this for years. No slash. Please read and review. Thanks.


_A/N: _I made an attempt at a high school AU fic, just because I read an essay-type thing by someone who thinks they can never work. I'm not sure if this does, but whatever. I dug it up out of my files.

This can work as a follow-up piece to my fic **Red Plastic**, where House and Wilson meet in kindergarten.

No slash intended. Please R&R.

and no, i haven't abandoned **Cotton Candy Baby**.

* * *

_The Early Stages of Banter_

* * *

"Greg, what are you doing?"

"Thinking about Haley Kirk in a wet bikini. You mind coming back in about ten minutes?"

James Wilson rolled his eyes, leaning next to the stall where Greg House had been hiding for the past ten minutes. James glanced at his watch.

"It's two-thirty. My mom will kick my ass if I'm not home by three."

"So what are you waiting for? I don't need your emotional support to jack off."

"Right – like that's what you're doing."

"How do you know I'm not?"

"Because you think the school bathrooms are riddled with about five-thousand diseases and you'd never risk contracting an STD before actually getting laid."

"Go to hell."

"Oh, that's nice."

The stall door popped open, and a skinny beanpole of a boy appeared, leaning in the doorway.

"You know, it must be sweet to not actually believe in hell," he pondered aloud. "Then again, neither do I, and I don't even have to wear your funny hat."

Wilson glowered. "So what were you really doing locked up in a stall?"

"I was having an emotional moment over seeing the true shape of Haley's ass in those jeans she wore today and didn't want to compromise my manhood."

"So you're that afraid of Rudowksi?"

"I'm not _afraid_ of that idiot with an overactive pituitary gland."

"Sure, you are. You'd be an asshole not to be."

Greg straightened and approached the mirror, sighing at his lanky form and sharp, blue eyes.

"So you are too?" he asked.

James shrugged. "He's not after me."

"Why is it that I'm the one who always ends up hated? You're way cooler than me."

"I don't flaunt my intelligence like you do."

"I don't _flaunt_ anything. If I know an answer to some dumbass question, doesn't it make sense to say so?"

James shrugged. "High school is screwed up."

Greg sighed. "He's not going to leave me alone until I'm physically incapable of fathering children."

"The world might benefit from a lack of more House babies."

Greg flipped him off in the mirror, and James grinned.

"So what are you going to do?" the brunette asked more gently, after a while.

"What _can_ I do? I've got to get home. Maybe it's my lucky day, and he's already gone."

James pursed his lips and gave a sympathetic look. This Rudowski character had been giving Greg a hard time since middle school, and as Greg got smarter, Rudowski got more pissed off. Teachers gave slackers like him a hard time whenever Greg rattled off another answer or got another publicly announced "A."

James neared his best friend, offering Greg's backpack. The elder boy slung it on one shoulder.

"Let's go."

* * *

They got as far as three blocks, before running into the quarterback from hell. 

"House!" he barked from behind the two friends, who both grimaced but turned around.

"What now?" Greg whined. "Lost your ball again?"

Rudowski growled, his two companions flanking him with the same mean, constipated expressions.

"I wouldn't be smart, if I were you," he warned.

"And if I were you, I'd have that ball checked out. That oval shape really does look unhealthy."

Wilson pursed his lips and rubbed his neck. _Oh, boy._

"You've had it coming to you for a long time, House," said the bully, clenching his fists.

"Why? Because I'm smarter than you? Is it my fault there was some mix up and they sent you to a regular high school instead of a special-ed facility?"

Rudowski lurched toward Greg, but James stopped him with a firm hand.

"You know, I seem to remember beating the crap out of you the _last_ time you tried messing with my friend," he said.

"That was then – and this is now."

"Wow, clichés make you sound smart, huh?" Greg interjected.

"I could snap you in half," Rudowski hissed at Wilson, who glared at him with unrelenting brown eyes.

"But would it really be worth the time in juvie?" Greg ruminated. "Hm. Maybe you would enjoy it. They don't mind stupidity there."

Rudowski pushed toward him, growling, but James pushed back.

"Get out of here, before I call the cops," he warned. The quarterback glowered at him for a long moment but stalked off with his cronies. Once alone with James again, Greg gave an exaggerated sigh.

"Well, that was close. I thought we might have to stop him with the sheer brilliance of anatomy trivia. Guys like him are kind of dumbfounded by that stuff. Funny word – 'dumbfounded.'"

James gave a real sigh and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I can't always protect you," he said. "He was right. He could've taken me on, if he'd wanted to. This isn't middle school anymore."

"You're right – it's one step further on our educational highway," Greg said in a motivational-speaker voice. James rested his hands on his hips, a true sign that he was being serious.

"I can't always protect you," he said again, somberly. Admitting it was probably harder for him than Greg.

"It's okay, Jimmy," said Greg, patting his friend on the shoulder, as he passed by. "Next time, I'll throw a book in his face. Might actually do him some good."

James stood still for a minute and rolled his eyes, hands still perched on his hips. He turned around and began to follow Greg home, where his best friend would flatter his mother on the way up to James' room and pop in a Rolling Stones cassette as they worked out their trigonometry homework.


End file.
